


courting him in fisticuffing waltz

by spock



Category: Dickensian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Controlling Behavior, Crueltide, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Consent, Gaslighting, M/M, Manipulative Relationship, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 14:10:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8920174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/pseuds/spock
Summary: All it had taken for Compeyson to ensnare Amelia in his trap had been the flutter of his eyelashes, the contrite introduction of affection after a brief period of utter awfulness. Arthur would never have fallen for such tricks.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MildredMost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MildredMost/gifts).



He'd been instructed to make it look realistic.

Arthur, with Jaggers' words echoing throughout his head not unlike a toll haunting the deepest stretch of night, who had never in his life been given leave to show a shred of realism where his true character had been concerned, felt rather inclined to indulge him. His days of late had been that of a waking nightmare, one bleeding into the next even as Compeyson rejoined him the night prior in his little hovel of a room and wiped Arthur's face so gently with a cloth wetted with cool, clean water and whispered against Arthur's brow that they were near the finish line now, that Arthur only had one final task before him — and had it only been the previous _night_ , not even a full twenty-four hours past?

Arthur wouldn't have minded the realest end of them all.

 

* * *

 

A boy, drawn from the shadows and paid in advance, raced up the short walk to Satis House, howling about an accident and arriving at such a time that Arthur's attending surgeon would later deem as _just in the nick of_ , teetering just on the edge of nearly being too late, heaven forbid. Compeyson had thrown himself from Amelia's embrace without a second thought, as there was no need to consummate that which had already been attended to well before the ring had even been placed on her finger earlier that day, just as surely all letters were dotted and crossed on their wedding contract.

 

* * *

 

He awoke in an opiate daze, Compeyson at his bedside. It seemed that even gravity bent itself to the man's will, ensuring that Arthur's fall adhered strictly to Compeyson's orders.

"I sent Amelia home," he said, reaching over Arthur's side to fix the covers so that they were nestled close to his chin. "She was dreadfully shaken by you lying here, although I couldn't tell you why. A broken leg isn't something to write home to mother about."

Arthur raised a hand to his eyes and wondered how long it had been since he last drank. The passage of his internal clock had the hours marked by the interval it took between the finishing of one drink and the start of another. "Surely it was the sentiment behind the act," he muttered, shifting to raise himself so that he had the veneer of sitting. "And the realization of how lucky it is that all I'd had to suffer is the leg, everything considered."

"Quite." Compeyson appeared shocked for the barest of moments before it was passed. "At any rate, it hadn't taken nearly as much coercing to get her to leave." Arthur rolled his lips into his mouth and tried his best to empty his mind. He would need to drink soon. Surely if anyone could sneak alcohol into hospital, it was Compeyson? "Which worried me, I admit. However," he continued on with flourish, raising to gather his coat and setting returning his hat back to its spot atop his head, "she agreed to stepping away for the business to tend to you however, and passed over all the accounting information just as you and I planned."

He left the room without specifying when he would return — though return he did, when the clock had gone three and all the nurses were either nodding off themselves or attending to the poor malcontents who couldn't, bringing with him a bottle that he gallantly deposited into Arthur's arms before throwing the bed's dressing to the floor and taking Arthur into his own and making for the door.

 

* * *

 

They were long gone before Amelia returned the following morning, wondering why her newly minted husband hadn't been at her side when she awoke.

 

* * *

 

The journey into London did Arthur no favors. The fever he developed tossed a wrench into the machinery of Compeyson's scheme but Arthur found that he felt no regret at his health being the one thing inside of him that finally refused to bend to the man's whim.

Compeyson checked him into a small recovery house once it became apparent that Arthur's predicament wasn't something that could be sweated away behind the locked doors of their recently rented room. He informed anyone who asked that they were cousins, payed Arthur's fees promptly, and proceeded to be kind to Arthur even when there hadn't been any nurses around to bear witness.

Mending, with his mind clouded by fever and morphine and the sups of brandy Compeyson would sneak to him throughout the day from the bottle hidden inside the innermost pocket of his freshly purchased jacket that hung fashionably from the back of the chair he sat in while he attended Arthur at his bedside, Arthur wondered if perhaps _this_ was the real Compeyson. The man had been so charming when they first met — when Arthur had gathered all his strength and ventured into a Molly house established for men of his ilk right on the edge of Kent and had been near frozen at the sight of what was clearly a gentleman kissing what looked to be a stableboy, before awareness of his body came rushing back to him and he pivoted into the chest of a man in his haste to escape, a man so handsome that he might as well have been plucked from Arthur's shameful dreams, and when that man had asked, playfully, if Arthur was lost, the first thing that came to Arthur's mind had been to say _I'm looking for someone to help me get what is rightfully mine_ instead of what he truly had wanted — and had only changed towards Arthur when Arthur had given him need to be something other than that, through his disobedience. Perhaps Arthur had forced Compeyson to treat Arthur as he had. The man had always inquired as to Arthur's well being after any instance of reproach, be it physical or verbal, after all. What did he know of the resolve it took to orchestrate the task that Compeyson had completed, what lengths a man would have to act outside of himself to achieve it?

 

* * *

 

Arthur's release from the care home was regaled in celebration befitting the man himself. Compeyson retrieved a chair from a nearby table and positioned it so that Arthur could rest the foot of his broken leg, following the doctor's instructions to _keep it elevated, if at all able_. They had sat themselves at a small rounded table that looked as if it would only just contain all the glasses Arthur planned to consume that night, which meant that the chair intended for Arthur's foot was right next to the one Compeyson himself was to sit in.

With flourish, Compeyson placed his hat on Arthur's foot, smiling at Arthur rather fondly as he committed the act. Arthur wished that the man had waited until he had a glass or five in him before pulling the stunt. At least then Arthur could have blamed the flush staining his cheeks on the drink.

Glass raised in a toast, Compeyson said, "Well, my dear Arthur, is this what you imagined when our paths crossed all those many months ago?" Arthur smiled and thought _not quite_ to himself, clinking their drinks together.

It was the start of a pattern. By night they haunted the smokey insides of whatever drinking establishment would take them, the amount of which seemed endless thanks to Compeyson's good credit. By day Arthur would then sequester himself from the light inside their shared room as Compeyson took to the streets, doing whatever it was that he did. Each evening Compeyson would return to him and off they went.

One afternoon a man had come banging, waking Arthur. After hearing that the man had been hired by his sister to inquire as to Compeyson's whereabouts, Arthur stuttered his way through a vague lie: While this room was being paid for out of Compeyson's credit by way of the Havisham estate, Arthur hadn't seen hide nor hair of the man since he had snuck himself out of hospital, ashamed after a failed suicide attempt to ever face his sister or her fiancé again. Compeyson had told him during that fateful night that Arthur was welcome to use his credit if ever he had a need. He was dreadfully sorry to have laid a false trail, but a false trail it had been.

If the inquiry agent hadn't believed the words themselves, Arthur's unkempt appearance had sold the rest.

He relayed all this to Compeyson when the man returned later that evening. He had hobbled out of the room and bought himself a bottle that hadn't done much if anything at all to relieve his rekindled anxieties, as he was still shaken.

Compeyson frowned, slammed his fist against the wall, with that look in his eye that Arthur had come to know meant he was positively _itching_ to cause harm, and then that angry gaze turned to Arthur where he sat on the bed, shaky hands fixing the light scarf wrapped around his neck. It was nearly time for them to leave on their nightly ritual.

"Arthur," he said, anger leaving his eyes between one blink and the next, voice steady. "I fear that your habit has gone too far."

Arthur blinked and said, "What?"

Compeyson walked to the bedside table, picking up the bottle Arthur had bought for himself. "I've indulged you too much."

He didn’t understand what Compeyson meant, at first.

 

* * *

 

The first night wasn’t so bad.

Compeyson sat beside him on the bed, and they played with a deck of cards that Compeyson had magicked out from his luggage. They retired for the first time before dawn and it was only then that Arthur recalled why he preferred to go to sleep whilst he was drunk as possible — it was so much easier for his mind to obsess over the short distance between his and Compeyson's beds when his mind was clear.

The second felt to Arthur as if the rapture was upon him. With it came tremors that felt as if they would never leave him; he sweated through his nightclothes twice. Compeyson stayed beside him through it all, even when Arthur was sick, helped Arthur change into fresh sets of clothes until they'd given up on that, changed Arthur's sheets and pressed cold compresses to his face, neck, the chilled naked expanse of his back.

The days that had followed were no easier, and Arthur swore he survived them only thanks to Compeyson's compassion and grace. When Arthur shook in such a way that he was a danger to himself Compeyson took him into his lap and held him so tightly that Arthur's body was forced into stillness. When a chill overtook Arthur and his heartbeat slowed to a dull thud against his chest Compeyson crawled into Arthur's bed and shared the heat of his own body, willing Arthur to pull through. He bathed Arthur, fed him when he was lucid and well enough to keep it down, and hushed his inane fever-ramblings whenever he began to agitate himself.

By the end of it all, Arthur felt more like himself than he had in a very long time, and with that feeling came the knowledge that he never would've been able to reach this point without Compeyson, and for that he was so, so utterly grateful.

 

* * *

 

Compeyson stepped away for a while once Arthur was finally able to be left on his own without fear of relapse or further injury. Arthur felt anxious without him, unsure of himself and what it was that he was allowed to do.

When he returned it was to the sight of Arthur sat right in the middle of his bed where Compeyson had left him, playing a hand of solitaire. Compeyson was visibly excited as he stepped into the room, a portfolio balanced between his side and one arm. "Our passage is secured."

Arthur hadn't known that they were leaving. He asked, "Whereabouts?"

Compeyson looked at him as if he thought Arthur thick. "Australia," he said, taking off his coat and tossing it onto the rack that stood by the single entrance to the room, walking over to the well-manicured fireplace to stoke the logs that he had set having left earlier. "I've been having the fortune transferred there. Now that the military has things settled they're looking for governors and the like to oversee the colonies." He turned to Arthur and grinned before continuing, "Well-to-do single men of good stature; I thought we'd fit right in. I'm sure that investigator of Amelia's hasn't caught on yet — wouldn't matter if she did, it's all mine now — but I'd rather not tempt fate and get drawn into the courts all the same."

"I don't know anyone there," Arthur said, dismayed.

"You'll know me." Compeyson said it with such nonchalance that something inside Arthur rattled, the length of his spine straightening for what felt like the first time in years.

"I'm not sure that I want to go," he began to say, slowly but building steam. "I don't think the settler's life is for me, Compeyson."

He watched as Compeyson frowned, considering, before nodding his head a few times. "Perhaps our partnership has run its course and the time has come for our paths to go their own separate ways," Compeyson said. He looked around the room and then nodded a final time, a man decided. "Yes, perhaps it is time. All right then, Arthur, let's go out one last time, in celebration of all that we have accomplished together."

"Should I..." Arthur trailed off as he spoke, unsure.

"Come now." Compeyson looked, if anything, amused. "Surely you can't go the rest of your life without a drink. I'll be watching after you, don't worry. Besides, it would be rather rude not to send me off properly, after all that it is we've been through together?"

 

* * *

 

He's drunk when he boards the ship, Compeyson shouldering him up the long walk of the gangway.

 

* * *

 

The voyage, for Arthur, was miserable. Motion sickness wrought havoc on his every waking moment and ensured that Arthur would not be able to hold down a stiff drink even if he was of a mind to partake in one, meaning that his seasickness was to be compounded by the ongoing detoxification process of his body, the one night's weakness that led to him agreeing to this hell-trip in the first place pushing him to what felt like the very first night of his symptoms. Perhaps the sickness worsened his addiction, or the addiction his sickness. He wasn't sure he cared.

Curled up on the small cot of his bed, housed in one of the few private-but-cramped quarters of the clipper ship that would take them halfway round the world in little more than a month's time, Arthur recalled how he felt in the moments before he left the roof's edge of his rented room, what felt to him then as a lifetime ago. He had been willing to die, then. Hoping for it, even. The sentiment had been eager for him to recall, miserable as he was. He might even have been tempted to stumble his way up deck and throw himself to the mercy of the waves to end what appeared to be an never-ending current of misery.

That is, he would if Compeyson hadn’t been there to care for him so dutifully. On that rooftop Arthur had never felt more alone, but in the ship's bed he had Compeyson's cool and steady hand at his brow, a lap to rest his head, someone to feed him and rub along the length of his spine in sympathy as Arthur did his best to stave himself from being ill. It had been easy to forget that slight scarring that lined the skin there, a remnant of a time that felt even more foreign and hazy than Arthur's loneliness; the Compeyson who had done whatever necessary to provide Arthur with his just deserts seemed a completely different man than the one who cared for him, of a completely different make and character.

It had been in the muddy halfway mark of their journey that Arthur's body finally acclimated to his new maritime reality. He awoke one morning to find that the world no longer felt as if the very force of gravity itself was working against him.

He'd awoken before Compeyson and used that good fortune to begin his attempts at repaying the debt he owed, quietly attended to wiping down his face and neck before he exited their room and went to secure their rations of coffee. Once he found the mess he loitered, made small talk with the other passengers to which he had not yet had opportunity to be acquainted and finishing off his own cup. When he returned he found that Compeyson was still asleep and realized that for the first time in their acquaintance it would be Arthur doing the waking that morning and not the other way around.

Nervously, he crossed the small distance to their cots from the door. "Compeyson." He kept his voice pitched rather soft, not wanting to startle. "It's morning."

Compeyson awoke as if he hadn't been asleep at all, eyes blinking open with a steady gaze that stared at Arthur, but that which Arthur wasn't sure actually registered his visage. "Quite," he said, voice sounding very much alert. The sickness had necessitated that Arthur take the lower of the two bunks, which meant that standing had Arthur towering a ways over Compeyson as he laid recumbent on the top cot — a change, as when both standing they were of a height, the older man with slight advantage, possibly.

"Fetched this for you," Arthur said, largely for wont of saying anything at all, and rose his hand in indication. Compeyson rose onto an elbows and took the cup from him, drained it in one continuous swallow then set it on the small shelf carved into the wall on which their beds hung. Arthur watched the long line of this throat throughout this process and searched his mind for something, anything, to say. "I should be cross with you," was what he decided on. Keeping his voice light, he continued. "I don't even remember how you convinced me this was anything approaching a good idea."

Compeyson reached out his right hand and settled it at Arthur's nape. His fingers slid themselves through his hair, their tips a gentle pressure that guided Arthur's face towards his until their lips met. He kissed Arthur very slowly. Arthur was statuesque throughout it all, unmoving, shocked.

When they parted Compeyson laughed very softly, a laugh Arthur had never heard come from him. "A reward."

Arthur's mind spun as it attempted to decipher Compeyson's meaning. "For — for the coffee?" he asked.

"For hiring me," Compeyson told him, looking rather amused.

"That seems rather delayed." Arthur's cheeks bled into what he knew to be a ruddy red, an unflattering combination to his hair. It felt as if his vertigo had returned. He wanted to drop down onto his own cot before he was ill again, for surely that was to be next on the horizon.

Compeyson retrieved his hand from the back of Arthur's head and slid it across his cheek to play with the curled, longer strands of Arthur's fringe between his fingers. "Am I to make up for it then?" He sounded contemplative. "With interest?"

Every inch of Compeyson telegraphed his teasing, leading Arthur to feel embarrassed and yet unwilling to made a fool of, unwilling to back down. How many times had Compeyson done this to him before, offered in complete jest what Arthur desired in full seriousness only for Arthur to shy away as if it were he who had no idea of what was truly on the table. _No longer_ , Arthur avowed. "I believe that to be the only just and fair thing," Arthur said, with an air of sincerity that was utterly and entirely false.

"Well, if we are to be fair and just." Compeyson tugged Arthur forward with a painful twitch of his fingers still pinching Arthur's hair, reclaiming his mouth.

A wave hit the side of their ship rather viciously and Compeyson harnessed the momentum to pull Arthur closer towards him, so that Arthur had no other choice but to drag himself up to lie beside Compeyson in the too-narrow bed. His already racing heart found a new source of anxiety, Arthur terrified of tumbling out and harming his just-mended leg, if not worse. He moved closer to Compeyson out of this fear, uncomfortable with how the majority of his body was teetering over the edge of the bed. Compeyson threw a leg over both of Arthur's own, ensuring that their fronts were flush.

Arthur startled, realizing belatedly how his eagerness to be closer to Compeyson might have been misconstrued. When he attempted to speak the hand Compeyson still had cradling Arthur's face tightened its grip; Arthur emitted a small gasp of pain, his breath caught in this throat at the suddenness of it. The sound appeared to spur Compeyson on, his free hand roughly reaching between their bodies to paw at Arthur through the material of his trousers, his lips becoming aggressive as they left Arthur's behind to begin sucking harsh bites into the column of Arthur's throat.

"Compeyson." Arthur gasped around his name, the pain making his body shake involuntarily, unsure of what to do. It had been so gentle not seconds before, his arousal building, but the rough turn was not unlike a cold pail of water being dumped overtop of him, his system shocked into inaction.

"Dear Arthur," Compeyson said. "I knew that you would like this, that you needed it. I wanted to be gentle, but..." His voice trailed off, his passion clearly having had grown at whatever it was that his mind had envisioned. He finally released his hold of Arthur's face to reach down and undo the opening of his trousers before attending to the button of Arthur's own.

Arthur realized with a start that Compeyson assumed that Arthur's reactions had been receptive in their nature. He opened his mouth to say that he had no such compulsions, that this was not one of his numerous perversions, before guilt settled over him like a fog — Compeyson had been misguided to this conclusion and it was all Arthur's fault.

Compeyson had been so clearly shaken and contrite at having needed to harm Arthur during their scheme. It was entirely possible that he had needed to assume Arthur derived some pleasure from it in order to now see Arthur in this way, as a means to let go of the guilt associated with harming someone he now cared for. Arthur had sabotaged himself his entire life and had come to see that what Compeyson had done to him had been necessary to keeping him in line. The reason it had worked was _because_ Arthur found no pleasure in it, however, and he was at a loss to see why he inspired Compeyson in such a way when he wasn't acting against their interests any longer.

It was only in his most passionate that Compeyson harmed him; Arthur's mind stumbled over itself to deduce that perhaps it was Compeyson who has these desires, and who had assumed he had found a kindred spirit in Arthur.

Arthur feared that Compeyson would halt their passions if he admitted the misunderstanding, out of guilt himself or perhaps in anger. Would he still wish to be with Arthur in this way if their desires weren't compatible? Would he wish to halt any association with Arthur at all?

It wasn’t as if Arthur had any experience as to the practical application of passion, at any rate. It was entirely possible that their coupling had been the standard for such things between men. It was equally likely that all preferences and passion were to be learned, and with Compeyson as his guide he would surely develop the same tastes as his companion.

He had to be doing something correctly, for Compeyson hadn't faltered at Arthur's rigidity. With both of their trousers tangled around their ankles, Compeyson rose onto his hands and knees and pulled Arthur so that he was beneath him, prostrate with his face pressed into the meagre lump that passed as pillows on their vessel, and then rucked Arthur's shirt up to his shoulders.

Compeyson licked against the skin of his upper back, which Arthur rather liked, and then nipped across the same path, which Arthur rather didn't. It only took a few passes of Compeyson's mouth for Arthur to realize that he was tracing the scarring of his back, scars that Compeyson had put there, an unmistakeable mar on the otherwise pristine skin of a gentleman's son. Arthur was sure that Compeyson must have felt so guilty for having tarnished him so, imagined his current actions to be some sort of penance, and practiced moaning, as he hoped to reassure Compeyson that he held no resentment in his heart.

Two fingers wormed their way between Arthur's face and the pillow, easily slid themselves between Arthur's lips. His mouth was full of saliva, a reaction from the sudden nausea of the ships sudden movement and his original fear from Compeyson's rough affections; it was easy for Compeyson to gather that wetness between his fingers. He removed them from Arthur's mouth before Arthur had registered why he had placed them there.

The fingers reacquaint themselves with Arthur's body, this time at his most intimate of places. Arthur did his best to regulate his breathing and forced his mind to concentrate on the mechanics of what Compeyson was doing to him, of how Compeyson reacted to the feel of him, so that Arthur might best go about continuing to please him in the future.

 

* * *

 

They arrived in Australia towards the very end of autumn. It was with a sense of bewilderment that Arthur realized that he'd gone from one winter to the next, and he allowed himself a brief moment of melancholy as he wondered if he'd ever see spring again.

**Author's Note:**

> happy yuletide! 
> 
> a very heartfelt thank you to isabeau for the beta. this prompt hooked itself into my brain and i just couldn't resist.


End file.
